Amerikanen schieten bevrijder van Italiaanse dood.

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da "il manifesto" 06 March 2005
My truth


Giuliana Sgrena

I'm still in the dark. Friday was the most dramatic day of my life. I had been in captivity for many days. I had just spoken with my captors. It had been days they were telling me I would be released. I was living in waiting for this moment. They were speaking about things that only later I would have understood the importance of. They were speaking about problems "related to transfers."

I learned to understand what was going on by the behavior of my two guards, the two guards that had me under custody every day. One in particular showed much attention to my desires. He was incredibly cheerful. To understand exactly what was going on I provocatively asked him if he was happy because I was going or because I was staying. I was shocked and happy when for the first time he said, "I only know that you will go, but I don't know when." To confirm the fact that something new was happening both of them came into my room and started comforting me and kidding: "Congratulations they said you are leaving for Rome." For Rome, that's exactly what they said.

I experienced a strange sensation because that word evoked in me freedom but also projected in me an immense sense of emptiness. I understood that it was the most difficult moment of my kidnapping and that if everything I had just experienced until then was "certain," now a huge vacuum of uncertainty was opening, one heavier than the other. I changed my clothes. They came back: "We'll take you and don't give any signals of your presence with us otherwise the Americans could intervene." It was confirmation that I didn't want to hear; it was altogether the most happy and most dangerous moment. If we bumped into someone, meaning American military, there would have been an exchange of fire. My captors were ready and would have answered. My eyes had to be covered. I was already getting used to momentary blindness. What was happening outside? I only knew that it had rained in Baghdad. The car was proceeding securely in a mud zone. There was a driver plus the two captors. I immediately heard something I didn't want to hear. A helicopter was hovering at low altitude right in the area that we had stopped. "Be calm, they will come and look for you...in 10 minutes they will come looking for." They spoke in Arabic the whole time, a little bit of French, and a lot in bad English. Even this time they were speaking that way.

Then they got out of the car. I remained in the condition of immobility and blindness. My eyes were padded with cotton, and I had sunglasses on. I was sitting still. I thought what should I do. I start counting the seconds that go by between now and the next condition, that of liberty? I had just started mentally counting when a friendly voice came to my ears "Giuliana, Giuliana. I am Nicola, don't worry I spoke to Gabriele Polo (editor in chief of Il Manifesto). Stay calm. You are free." They made me take my cotton bandage off, and the dark glasses. I felt relieved, not for what was happening and I couldn't understand but for the words of this "Nicola." He kept on talking and talking, you couldn't contain him, an avalanche of friendly phrases and jokes. I finally felt an almost physical consolation, warmth that I had forgotten for some time.

The car kept on the road, going under an underpass full of puddles and almost losing control to avoid them. We all incredibly laughed. It was liberating. Losing control of the car in a street full of water in Baghdad and maybe wind up in a bad car accident after all I had been through would really be a tale I would not be able to tell. Nicola Calipari sat next to me. The driver twice called the embassy and in Italy that we were heading towards the airport that I knew was heavily patrolled by U.S. troops. They told me that we were less than a kilometer away...when...I only remember fire. At that point, a rain of fire and bullets hit us, shutting up forever the cheerful voices of a few minutes earlier.

The driver started yelling that we were Italians. "We are Italians, we are Italians." Nicola Calipari threw himself on me to protect me and immediately, I repeat, immediately I heard his last breath as he was dying on me. I must have felt physical pain. I didn't know why. But then I realized my mind went immediately to the things the captors had told me. They declared that they were committed to the fullest to freeing me but I had to be careful, "the Americans don't want you to go back." Then when they had told me I considered those words superfluous and ideological. At that moment they risked acquiring the flavor of the bitterest of truths, at this time I cannot tell you the rest.

This was the most dramatic day. But the months that I spent in captivity probably changed forever my existence. One month alone with myself, prisoner of my profound certainties. Every hour was an impious verification of my work, sometimes they made fun of me, and they even stretch as far as asking why I wanted to leave, asking me stay. They insisted on personal relationships. It was them that made me think of the priorities that too often we cast aside. They were pointing to family. "Ask your husband for help," they would say. And I also said in the first video that I think you all saw, "My life has changed." As Iraqi engineer Ra'ad Ali Abdulaziz of the organization A Bridge For [Baghdad], who had been kidnapped with the two Simones had told me "my life is not the same anymore." I didn't understand. Now I know what he meant. Because I experienced the harshness of truth, it's difficult proposition (of truth) and the fragility of those who attempt it.

In the first days of my kidnapping I did not shed a tear. I was simply furious. I would say in the face of my captors: "But why do you kidnap me, I'm against the war." And at that point they would start a ferocious dialogue. "Yes because you go speak to the people, we would never kidnap a journalist that remains closed in a hotel and because the fact that you say you're against the war could be a decoy." And I would answer almost to provoke them: "It's easy to kidnap a weak woman like me, why don't you try with the American military." I insisted on the fact that they could not ask the Italian government to withdraw the troops. Their political go-between could not be the government but the Italian people, who were and are against the war.

It was a month on a see-saw shifting between strong hope and moments of great depression. Like when it was a first Sunday after the Friday they kidnapped me, in the house in Baghdad where I was kept, and on top of which was a satellite dish they showed me the Euronews Newscast. There I saw a huge picture of me hanging from Rome City Hall. I felt relieved. Right after though the claim by the Jihad that announced my execution if Italy did not withdraw the troops arrived. I was terrified. But I immediately felt reassured that it wasn't them. I didn't have to believe these announcements, they were "provocative." Often I asked the captor that from his face I could identify a good disposition but whom like his colleagues resembled a soldier: "Tell me the truth. Do you want to kill me?" Although many times there have been windows of communications with them. "Come watch a movie on TV" they would say while a Wahabi roamed around the house and took care of me. The captors seemed to me a very religious group, in continuous prayer on the Koran. But Friday, at the time of the release, the one that looked the most religious and who woke up every morning at 5 a.m. to pray incredibly congratulated me shaking my hand, a behavior unusual for an Islamic fundamentalist -- and he would add "if you behave yourself you will leave immediately." Then an almost funny incident. One of the two captors came to me surprised both because the TV was showing big posters of me in European cities and also for Totti. Yes Totti. He declared he was a fan of the Roma soccer team and he was shocked that his favorite player went to play with the writing "Liberate Giuliana" on his T-shirt.

I lived in an enclave in which I had no more certainties. I found myself profoundly weak. I failed in my certainties; I said that we had to tell about that dirty war. And I found myself in the alternative either to stay in the hotel and wait or to end up kidnapped because of my work. We don't want anyone else anymore. The kidnappers would tell me. But I wanted to tell about the bloodbath in Fallujah from the words of the refugees. And that morning the refugees, or some of their leaders would not listen to me. I had in front of me the accurate confirmation of the analysis of what the Iraqi society had become as a result of the war and they would throw their truth in my face: "We don't want anybody why didn't you stay in your home. What can this interview do for us?" The worse collateral effect, the war that kills communication was falling on me. To me, I who had risked everything, challenging the Italian government who didn't want journalists to reach Iraq and the Americans who don't want our work to be witnessed of what really became of that country with the war and notwithstanding that which they call elections. Now I ask myself. Is their refusal a failure?

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da "il manifesto" 05 March 2005
Nicola Calipari


VALENTINO PARLATO

We are happy for the liberation of Giuliana Sgrena, we are waiting to hig her here in via Tomacelli and we are above all dramatically hurt for the killing of Nicola Calipari, who has been the maker of Giuliana’s freedom. It would be bureaucratic and a limit to write that Nicola Calipari was serving the state. Nicola was a good person, loyal and generous.
I met Nicola Calipari only during Giuliana’s kidnapping, when a young old friend, Guido Ruotolo, gave me his name. Then Nicola himself got in touch more intensly with Gabriele Polo, but I will never be able to forget his discretion, his kindness, even while he was smoking a cigarette or referring a conversation, a contact. Discreet, respectful of his superior (who though of him greatly), but always careful to say what was useful to solve the problem, I never heard him saying something to show off, to earn the consensus of his superiors. He was careful to the service, but also - and I understood this recently, meeting him - to the result, which coincided with his morality.
And he expressed this deep morality, that is respect for himself and not only for others, through his modesty, through his ability to never speak over the lines, through the smile which often appeared on his lips. He was a person that inspired the maximum trust even to myself - consumed in so many experiences -: if Nicola told me something, I believed him, I had no doubts nor suspects; Nicola would not say something to hide something else. And all of this was shown - to a careful eye - on his face, on his smile, even on his mustache. And the eyes, which were full of words and discreet. When at the check-point, before the Baghdad airport, from and American car (yes, American, Usa), the first shots were fired against the car which was bringing Giuliana towards the airplane which would have brought her back to Italy, Nicola reacted humanly, immediately, for a reflex unwritten in the rules of his service, he shielded Giuliana’s body, and he was killed. Last night Giuliana was in the hospital because she was wounded in her shoulder, but she will come out of the hospital and will come back here to Rome, in Via Tomacelli. The joy for Giuliana is big, but even bigger is our pain, of all of us of il manifesto, for the death of Nicola Calipari. He was not wounded in service, but because he has been extremely generous, which we of il manifesto cannot forget. To his two children and his wife a big hug from all, really all of us.

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da "il manifesto" 05 March 2005
Life and Death


Gabriele Polo

A few minutes, that is how long our joy lasted. The time which goes from a phone call to another: the one telling us of Giuliana’s freedom and the one which throws us into the killing of the person who more than anybody else worked to free her. Fifteen, maximum twenty minutes, the time to save one life and lose another. Within the absurdity of a war in which we all risk to get lost.
Sure, we are happy to be able to soon hug Giuliana, to be able to have her back with us, to go back and listen to and read her stories of peace. We owe it to what we have done in this very long month. All of us: we of il manifesto, the colleagues who helped us keep the attention on this abduction alive, the many people who with a phone call, a letter, or by coming to the streets kept the presence of our comrade alive even while she was forced to be silent. But we also owe it to those who worked night and day to find a contact with the kidnappers, to reach an agreement. People who are different from us, who speak a different language and uses different means. Yet with some of them we have been united with a common aim: to bring home a woman deprived of her freedom and to do it though a negotiation, not through those weapons which are the root of evil which for thirty days has taken Giuliana away from us. After those 15, 20 minutes of joy, last night we fell into a live drama. We are journalists and we must tell the story, but do not ask of us to be detached as a reporter should be.
It is not possible. Just as it was not possible to coldly separate the duty to report and comment from the worry for Giuliana’s fate, from the fear she had fear, she was hungry, cold. When that second phone call arrived in a palace with high ceilings and wide spaces - so different from our daily working place -, we were there. And we will never be able to forget the pain of the colleagues of Nicola Calipari, how Gianni Letta was upset, even how the Prime Minister - whom we saw there and then for the first time - could not believe the news. We will never be able to forget the hectic calls, the chaos, the feeling of being lost by a place of power dealing with a power absolute and uncontrollable, the power of was, of who makes it and directs it. «Nicola died, Giuliana is wounded»: a bit crying, a bit asking for more details of the wound of Giuliana, knowing she was there, with the American guns pointing at her, bleeding who knows how, asking she would be brought immediately to the hospital. Then we heard the wound was not serious, only superficial on the shoulder, because the bullet which could have killed her had first gone through the body of Nicola Calipari. Who saved her. For the second time.
In those chaotic minutes, made of callls among ministries, generals, ambassadors - calls which all seemed pointless -- we witnessed impotence going on stage, the performance of war killing politics, chalking democracy. All our reasons - those of Giuliana - were confirmed. Yet we wanted it to be different. We wish we could hear another call, telling us it was all a mistake, nobody had died, Nicola magically had got up, maybe a bit hurt and together with our Giuliana he was going to the airport, to come back home. We would have hug them both and all that we had just witnessed would only have been a bad dream.
But no. That call never arrived. There has been another one, confirming everything: Nicola died, Giuliana and other two secret agents in the hospital. At that point, the only thing left to do was to leave, go back to the newspaper, tell everything to the comrades, explain that the joy was lost.
They taught us to be cold, to analyze the events, not to get involved too much, in order to understand what happens. And try to change it. Right. But he world is made of people. Facts, even history, are our product: at the end they are the product of bodies, flesh and blood. It all depends on us, on what we do. On what Giuliana Sgrena has done and will don, on what Nicola Calipari had done but will never be able to do. We got a comrade back. We lost someone who would have become our friend.

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Op dinsdag 8 maart 2005 22:24 schreef NightH4wk het volgende:

[..]

Uhm, dat kan zo gezien worden idd. Maar dit is zo algemeen, wat vind jij?

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Op dinsdag 8 maart 2005 22:46 schreef ultra_ivo het volgende:
Ja ik weet het, voor jou is iedere Iraki een terrorist

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Maar het leven zit gecompliceerder in elkaar

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Net zoals iedereen die het niet met je eens is in een afkeurenswaardig hokje stoppen (zie tekst boven de avatar).

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Op dinsdag 8 maart 2005 22:51 schreef HarigeKerel het volgende:
Wat een wijsheid.

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Op dinsdag 8 maart 2005 23:14 schreef SaintOfKillers het volgende:


Probeer ze dan misschien eens toe te passen .

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 07:36 schreef CeeJee het volgende:
Hier is ie dan: de auto waar honderden kogels in geschoten zijn door tanks:

[afbeelding]

[afbeelding]

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 13:59 schreef oheng het volgende:
Wie gelooft er dan ook een communist. Dat soort lui zijn compleet gefrustreerd omdat er voor de zoveelste keer een geloofsgenoot (terecht) door de Amerikanen is opgeruimd.

[edit]Ik heb het hier natuurlijk over saddam en z'n ba'ath partij. Ik ben benieuwd wat de echte toedracht is.[/edit]

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 17:18 schreef sp3c het volgende:
ik zie hem ook nog gewoon hoor

maar het voertuig zal niet van voren beschoten zijn neem ik aan, anders zou de bestuurder of de bijrijder wel gedood zijn en niet iemand op de achterbank

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"Wij zijn anti-imperialisten, anti-kapitalisten, communisten. De Irakezen ontvoeren alleen maar de hulpjes van de Amerikanen, de vijanden van de Amerikanen hebben niets te vrezen," zo riep zij vlak voor aankomt in Bagdad. Heerlijk die linkse naïviteit. Lekker Irakeesjes knuffelen, dan doen ze je vast niks. Het lijkt Nederland wel. Maar goed, het gedachtegoed van deze linkse secreet heeft de Italiaanse overheid niet alleen miljoenen euri’s aan losgeld gekost, het kostte ook het leven van een landgenoot. Waarom horen we daar niets over?

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 13:59 schreef oheng het volgende:
Wie gelooft er dan ook een communist. Dat soort lui zijn compleet gefrustreerd omdat er voor de zoveelste keer een geloofsgenoot (terecht) door de Amerikanen is opgeruimd.

[edit]Ik heb het hier natuurlijk over saddam en z'n ba'ath partij. Ik ben benieuwd wat de echte toedracht is.[/edit]

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 18:29 schreef milagro het volgende:
http://secureliberty.org/index.php/2005/03/07/sgrena_car_shooting

voor wat sceptisch commentaar op het (haar) verhaal.

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http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/070362.php

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 17:39 schreef HarigeKerel het volgende:
Ja, ze rijden daar zo'n beetje standaard in (gepantserde!) witte Toyota Landcruiser SUV's.
Klopt deze foto wel?

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 18:29 schreef milagro het volgende:
http://secureliberty.org/index.php/2005/03/07/sgrena_car_shooting
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/070362.php

voor wat sceptisch commentaar op het (haar) verhaal.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 18:34 schreef Monidique het volgende:

[..]

Dat is geen sceptisch commentaar, dat is haast kritiekloos aannemen dat de Amerikanen gelijk hebben. Wat natuurlijk altijd nog kan zijn, hoewel zij nu eenmaal onbetrouwbaar zijn, zoals Giuliana "Amerikanen zijn het grootste gevaar voor de mensheid" Sgrena dat ook wel een beetje lijkt te zijn.

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Iraq Islamic Army: We Refused Ransom for Italian Journalist


Members of the Iraq Islamic Army who abducted the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena state that they refused the ransom money offered for the journalist's release.

In the videocassette containing the image of Sgrena and the hostage takers that was broadcast earlier today, the two gunmen standing behind Sgrena read out the following statement: "After some research, we have decided to release her without accepting any of the ransom money that was offered. This is not one of the principles of the resistance."

Sgrena was released last week after being detained as a hostage for a month, following her release, she was shot and injured after the car in which she was traveling was opened fire on by US troops, unfortunately an Italian intelligence agent responsible for her release lost her life in the incident.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 18:34 schreef Monidique het volgende:

[..]

Dat is geen sceptisch commentaar, dat is haast kritiekloos aannemen dat de Amerikanen gelijk hebben. Wat natuurlijk altijd nog kan zijn, hoewel zij nu eenmaal onbetrouwbaar zijn, zoals Giuliana "Amerikanen zijn het grootste gevaar voor de mensheid" Sgrena dat ook wel een beetje lijkt te zijn.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 18:46 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Ja, het is in ieder geval een ráár verhaal. Kijk, trigger-happy Yankees zijn eerder regel dan uitzondering, linkse journalisten die wat overdrijven, goed, dat kan, maar dat in combinatie met onbaatzuchtige gijzelnemers. Het is een raar verhaal, dat zeker.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 18:38 schreef DionysuZ het volgende:

[..]

Het laatste verhaal kan wat mij betreft direct de prullenbak in.. want waarom niet stoppen bij die checkpoint omdat "US Soldiers shoot reporters" maar wel bij de voorgaande checkpoints? Eerste verhaal lees ik zo even, nu geen tijd

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 18:49 schreef Lonewolf2003 het volgende:

[..]

Het is een cliché maar dit keer vast weer waar. De uiteindelijk waarheid zal vast in het midden liggen.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 19:10 schreef milagro het volgende:
Hm zou die foto niet de auto zijn waarin ze reed toen ze ontvoerd werd ?

Door hoeveel kogels is die Italiaanse man geraakt eigenlijk?
zoals je in een kogelregen zou verwachten door tig?
Ik las ergens dat hij door 1 kogel in het hoofd geraakt is?
Of is dat helemaal niet bekend nog?

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Meanwhile, an autopsy performed on the agent who died trying to save Giuliana Sgrena reportedly showed he was struck in the temple by a single round and died instantly as the car carrying Sgrena sped to the Baghdad airport.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 19:32 schreef milagro het volgende:
http://www.repubblica.it/(...)ca/autosgrena/1.html
nog wat meer foto's van de beschoten auto ...

oh en
[..]

Sgrena en de doodgeschoten man zaten achter in, zij dook weg, hij lag half over haar heen om haar te beschermen tegen de kogelregen toch?
En dan is hij door 1 kogel in de slaap geraakt dus en zij door 1 in de schouder.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 19:18 schreef Strolie75 het volgende:
Sowieso zou die auto doorboord moeten zijn als hij echt door een tank was beschoten. Zo'n boordcanon schiet toch met een behoorlijk caliber. Ik vermoed dat een amerikaanse soldaat in paniek is geraakt toen hij die auto op zich af zag komen en toen geschoten heeft. Dat die "journaliste" nu zit te overdrijven om haar eigen vooroordelen ten opzichte van de VS te bevestigen is natuurlijk diep triest. Maar goed, anti-VS geblaat valt nu eenmaal lekker in die kringen.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 20:37 schreef Strolie75 het volgende:
En die journaliste kan dit verwerken in wat Amerika-bash verhalen en ondertussen mooi de aandacht afleiden van het feit dat er tig miljoen Italiaans belastinggeld aan haar verspild is. Iets dat de Italiaanse politiek ook mooi uitkomt.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 18:35 schreef HarigeKerel het volgende:
Ze doet de ontvoering ook wel af als een politieke statement tegen "de kapitalistische honden blabla"
Maar volgens mij was het ze gewoon om het geld te doen, ordinaire misdaad ala de ontvoering van Heineken.

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Sgrena had been kidnapped by another one of these mysterious groups that seems to like to target those people who support their cause (kidnapping foreign pacifists just benefits the Americans, so you really have to wonder about many of these incidents). It appears this was a kidnapping for money, with the kidnappers taking the highest amount offered. Before they let her go, they warned her that the Americans wanted to see her dead ("the Americans don't want you to go back"). How would they know that? Presumably because the Americans offered them so many dollars to have her returned dead. Fortunately for her, the Italians offered more to have her returned alive.

Assassination Attempt

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 20:41 schreef Lonewolf2003 het volgende:
Ja het is nou eenmaal veel makkelijker en popiejopie bij haar commievrienden om een groot Amerikaans complot tegen je te verzinnen.. Dan te erkennen dat het niet meer en minder is dan het "falen" van één of meerdere doodsbenauwde Amerikaanse jongeren.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 20:50 schreef Strolie75 het volgende:

[..]

Plus dat ze haar uitspraak [i]"vijanden van Amerika hebben in Irak niks te vrezen" had moeten terugnemen.

Enige slachtoffers in deze zaak zijn de Amerikaanse soldaat en die Italiaanse geheim agent.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2005 20:50 schreef Strolie75 het volgende:

[..]

Plus dat ze haar uitspraak [i]"vijanden van Amerika hebben in Irak niks te vrezen" had moeten terugnemen.

Enige slachtoffers in deze zaak zijn de Amerikaanse soldaat en die Italiaanse geheim agent.